Everton 2 Manchester City 0: Toffees' hard graft is a lesson for Roberto Mancini and City

Roberto Mancini has been making a fashion statement out of a faded retro scarf for the best part of a month now but he has only just been acquainted with the requirements for reaching the top in English football.

Wolves, Stoke, Middlesbrough and Blackburn have been dispatched easily but Everton with the bit between their teeth at a partisan Goodison Park were always likely to be a different proposition.

Mancini’s City were overrun and overpowered and would have been overwhelmed but for Marouane Fellaini and Tim Cahill heading against the bar near the end with Everton already two goals to the good.

Set-piece: Steven Pienaar flicks the ball up over the wall and in (above) while Louis Saha doubles the advantage from the penalty spot

Man for man, City’s line-up may have had the edge but as a unit, Everton were streets ahead.

Goodison manager David Moyes, asked if Robinho’s departure gave his side a boost, he replied: ‘I didn’t even notice. I was too busy concentrating on my team.’

If the evidence of his eyes was not enough for Mancini, there were one or two pointers about City’s shortcomings in the way Cahill described Everton’s renaissance.

‘Some of the stuff we played was fantastic but the work-rate, desire to tackle and desire to run that extra yard was just as important,’ he said. ‘That was the difference between us and City.’

Steven Pienaar curled a 36th-minute free-kick inside the near post and Everton’s dominance was rewarded on the stroke of half-time as Louis Saha converted a penalty after a brainless tug of his shirt by Micah Richards.